http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/02/national/main6640388.shtml

July 2, 2010 New Orleans
(CBS/AP) BP and the Obama administration face mounting complaints that they are ignoring foreign offers of equipment and making little use of the fishing boats and volunteers available to help clean up what may now be the biggest spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Coast Guard said there have been 107 offers of help from 44 nations, ranging from technical advice to skimmer boats and booms. But many of those offers are weeks old, and only a small number have been accepted, with the vast majority still under review, according to a list kept by the State Department.

And in recent days and weeks, for reasons BP has never explained, many fishing boats hired for the cleanup have done a lot of waiting around.

A report prepared by investigators with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., detailed one case in which the Dutch government offered April 30 to provide four oil skimmers that collectively could process more than 6 million gallons of oily water a day. It took seven weeks for the U.S. to approve the offer.

Special Section: Disaster in the Gulf

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs on Thursday scorned the idea that “somehow it took the command 70 days to accept international help.”

“That is a myth,” he declared, “that has been debunked literally hundreds of times.”

He said 24 foreign vessels were operating in the Gulf before this week. He did not specifically address the Dutch vessels.

The help is needed. Based on some government estimates, more than 140 million gallons of crude have now spewed from the bottom of the sea since the April 20 explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform, eclipsing the 1979-80 disaster off Mexico that had long stood as the worst in the Gulf.

One possible option for the government is a huge new piece of equipment: the world’s largest oil-skimming vessel, which arrived Wednesday.

Officials hope the ship can scoop up to 21 million gallons of oil-fouled water a day. Dubbed the “A Whale,” the Taiwanese-flagged former tanker spans the length of 3½ football fields and is 10 stories high.

It just emerged from an extensive retrofitting to prepare it specifically for the Gulf, but it’s still waiting for the Environmental Protection Agency and Coast Guard to sign off on it’s use.

“It is absolutely gigantic. It’s unbelievable,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental studies professor who consults for the federal government on oil spills. He saw the ship last week in Norfolk, Va.

The vessel looks like a typical tanker, but it takes in contaminated water through 12 vents on either side of the bow. The oil is then supposed to be separated from the water and transferred to another vessel. The water is channeled back into the sea.

But the ship’s never been tested, and many questions remain about how it will operate. For instance, the seawater retains trace amounts of oil, even after getting filtered, requiring the EPA to sign off on allowing the treated water back into the Gulf.

“This is a no-brainer,” Overton said. “You’re bringing in really dirty, oily water and you’re putting back much cleaner water.”

The Coast Guard will have the final say in whether the vessel can operate in the Gulf. The owner, shipping firm TMT Group, will have to come to separate terms with BP, which is paying for the cleanup.

“I don’t know whether it’s going to work or not, but it certainly needs to be given the opportunity,” Overton said.

Meanwhile, more than 2,000 smaller boats have signed up for oil-spill duty under BP’s Vessel of Opportunity program. The company pays boat captains and their crews a flat fee based on the size of the vessel, ranging from $1,200 to $3,000 a day, plus a $200 fee for each crew member who works an eight-hour day.

Rocky Ditcharo, a shrimp dock owner in Buras, La., said many fishermen hired by BP have told him that they often park their boats on the shore while they wait for word on where to go.

“They just wait because there’s no direction,” Ditcharo said. He said he believes BP has hired many boat captains “to show numbers.”

“But they’re really not doing anything,” he added. He also said he suspects the company is hiring out-of-work fishermen to placate them with paychecks.

Chris Mehlig, a fisherman from Louisiana’s St. Bernard Parish, said he is getting eight days of work a month, laying down containment boom, running supplies to other boats or simply being on call dockside in case he is needed.

“I wish I had more days than that, but that’s the way things are,” he said.

Billy Nungesser, president of Louisiana’s hard-hit Plaquemines Parish, said BP and the Coast Guard provided a map of the exact locations of 140 skimmers that were supposedly cleaning up the oil. But he said that after he repeatedly asked to be flown over the area so he could see them at work, officials told him only 31 skimmers were on the job.

“I’m trying to work with these guys,” he said. “But everything they’re giving me is a wish list, not what’s actually out there.”

A BP spokesman declined to comment.

Newly retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government’s point man for the response effort, bristled at some of the accusations in Issa’s report.

“I think we’ve been pretty transparent throughout this,” Allen said at the White House. He disputed any suggestion that there aren’t enough skimmers being put on the water, saying the spill area is so big that there are bound to be areas with no vessels.

The Coast Guard said there are roughly 550 skimmers working in the Gulf, with 250 or so in Louisiana waters, 136 in Florida, 87 in Alabama and 76 in Mississippi, although stormy weather in recent days has kept the many of the vessels from working.

The frustration extends to the volunteers who have offered to clean beaches and wetlands. More than 20,000 volunteers have signed up to help in Florida, Alabama and Mississippi, yet fewer than one in six has received an assignment or the training required to take part in some chores, according to BP.

The executive director of the Alabama Coastal Foundation, Bethany Kraft, said many people who volunteered are frustrated and angry that no one has called on them for help.

“You see this unfolding before your eyes and you have this sense that you can’t do anything,” she said. “To watch this happen in our backyard and not be able to help is hard.”

Some government estimates put the amount of oil spilled at 160 million gallons. That calculation was arrived at by using the rate of 2.5 million gallons a day all the way back to the oil rig explosion. The AP, relying on scientists who advised the government on flow rate, bases its estimates on a lower rate of 2.1 million gallons a day up until June 3, when a cut to the well pipe increased flow.

By either estimate, the disaster would eclipse the Ixtoc disaster in the Gulf two decades ago and rank as the biggest offshore oil spill during peacetime. The biggest spill in history happened in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War, when Iraqi forces opened valves at a terminal and dumped about 336 million gallons of oil.

The total in the Gulf disaster is significant because BP is likely to be fined per gallon spilled. Also, scientists say an accurate figure is needed to calculate how much oil may be hidden below the surface, doing damage to the deep-sea environment.

“It’s a mind-boggling number any way you cut it,” said Ed Overton, a Louisiana State University environmental studies professor. “It’ll be well beyond Ixtoc by the time it’s finished.”

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iV4SwHJNesVoVCV9ko4WK3wBjsmgD9GP10CG0

By HARRY R. WEBER and MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (AP) – 10 hours ago July 5, 2010

HOUSTON — As engineers bore deeper into the seafloor toward the source of the oil still spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, BP PLC is growing more confident that the relief well it expects to complete in August will succeed where all previous efforts to contain or kill the gusher have failed.

But what if it doesn’t work?

At the very least, oil would continue to spill while workers try something else.

That proposition would surely bring more misery for the people who live, work and play along the shores from Louisiana to Florida.

And consider this: Chief Executive Tony Hayward said in June that the reservoir of oil is believed to hold about 2.1 billion gallons of oil. If the problem was never fixed, it could mean another two years of oil spilling based on the current flow rate until the reservoir is drained.

BP says the first relief well is on target to be completed by early August. A second relief well, which could be completed a few weeks later, is viewed as a backup if the first one doesn’t work.

But efforts to contain other major oil spills haven’t always gone according to plan.

The 1979 Ixtoc oil spill, the Gulf’s worst oil spill before it was eclipsed by BP’s disaster, wasn’t contained until three months after the first of two relief wells was completed. By then, 140 million gallons of oil had spilled in the 10 months it took Pemex, Mexico’s state-owned oil company, to stop the leak.

That’s why BP is developing “backups for the backups.” But the British company is sparse on details, and even the ideas it is floating can’t guarantee the blown-out well that has already pumped up to 160 million gallons of oil into the sea over 2 1/2 months won’t keep flowing into the fall — or perhaps even beyond.

So, the Gulf region is left to hold its collective breath as BP puts much of its effort into the relief well just as Mother Nature could unleash a blistering hurricane at any moment.

“The relief well itself is not a slam dunk,” said Gene Beck, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M University.

Kent Wells, a BP senior vice president, said other options include trying to reconfigure the existing containment cap to collect more of the spewing oil or tying it into another production platform on the surface. However, Wells has been mum on a game plan and he said no decisions have been made on the alternate platform idea.

BP declined repeated requests from The Associated Press over several days to make Wells available to elaborate or for a spokesman to comment further.

As to the hurricane concern, Wells said only that the rigs drilling the first relief well and the backup relief well are designed to operate in everything except a tropical storm or hurricane. If engineers had to disconnect and evacuate the area, drilling could be offline for 14 days, during which time an estimated 2.5 million gallons of oil would flow into the Gulf unabated each day.

History is on BP’s side, but the depth of the seafloor isn’t.

Engineers and oil industry experts familiar with or involved in previous relief well missions at sea say that if the heavy mud BP plans to pump into the existing well from underneath at its source doesn’t stop the flow altogether, it should at least reduce the pressure that is forcing oil so fast into the sea.

Carlos Osornio, a Mexican engineer in charge of Pemex’s deepwater drilling operations during the Ixtoc crisis, said BP may ultimately find that both relief wells are needed to contain the gusher.

“One relief well may not be enough to contain the high volume (of oil flow), but two will work for sure,” he said.

A reduction in pressure could give BP the option of putting a new blowout preventer on top of the one that was damaged in the April 20 explosion. That was a containment option BP considered early on, but hasn’t tried because of the risk posed by the amount of pressure from the seafloor.

A new blowout preventer isn’t foolproof either.

“It’s very unpredictable because the current condition of the well down there is unknown,” said Satish Nagarajaiah, a Rice University engineering professor who focuses on offshore structures.

BP engineers are using tools and running tests that tell them where they need to go. Drilling down parallel to the gushing well before cutting in sideways makes that data more accurate than it would have been if they were approaching the well horizontally, said Donald Van Nieuwenhuise, a University of Houston geology professor who has been a lead geologist on several offshore drilling projects.

“They’re not looking for a needle in the haystack anymore,” he said. “Now they’re just trying to figure out where they want to pick that needle up.”

Bruce Bullock, director of the Maguire Energy Institute at Southern Methodist University, said he is “somewhat suspect” that the relief well will hit its target on the first try.

“You’re going 18,000 feet to hit a dinner plate. My guess is two or three times is more of a likelihood,” he said.

Osornio, the former Pemex engineer who is now a deep drilling consultant, said there is no reason BP wouldn’t be successful the first try.

“Today’s tools provide specific locations in real time as they drill, something we didn’t have during Ixtoc,” he said.

Still, there’s potential peril if BP misses its target and decides to drill deeper directly into the oil producing formation.

Engineers tried that approach and were successful in killing several out of control wells in 1970 during the Bay Marchand fire off Louisiana.

But George Hirasaki, a Rice University professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering who was involved in the Bay Marchand oil containment effort for Shell, said engineers have to be very careful when drilling into any formation that has hydrocarbons, which poses the risk of the same type of explosion that destroyed the rig.

Bullock said there have been past successes with relief wells on land and in shallower waters, but no relief well is risk-free.

Beck said he expects the drillers to hit their mark on the first try but wouldn’t be surprised if it took two or three attempts. Beck puts the odds at 80 percent that the relief well will in short order kill the gushing well.

“There haven’t been a significant number of deepwater blowouts before,” he said. “To a certain extent, we’re in an unproven area here, as well.”

Kunzelman reported from New Orleans. AP writer Peter Prengaman contributed to this report.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/02/96959/why-so-few-skimmers-at-the-oil.html

By Anita Lee | Biloxi Sun-Herald
BILOXI, Miss. — From Washington to the Gulf, politicians and residents wonder why so few skimming vessels have been put to work soaking up oil from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

Investment banker Fred D. McCallister of Dallas believes he has the answer. McCallister, vice president of Allegiance Capital Corp. in Dallas, has been trying since June 5 to offer a dozen Greek skimming vessels from a client for the cleanup.

“By sinking and dispersing the oil, BP can amortize the cost of the cleanup over the next 15 years or so, as tar balls continue to roll up on the beaches, rather than dealing with the issue now by removing the oil from the water with the proper equipment,” McCallister testified earlier this week before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. “As a financial adviser, I understand financial engineering and BP’s desire to stretch out its costs of remediating the oil spill in the Gulf. By managing the cleanup over a period of many years, BP is able to minimize the financial damage as opposed to a huge expenditure in a period of a few years.”

A BP spokesman from Houston, Daren Beaudo, denied the allegation emphatically. He said, “Our goal throughout has been to minimize the amount of oil entering the environment and impacting the shoreline.”

A report released Thursday by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform included a photo depicting “a massive swath of oil” in the Gulf with no skimming equipment in sight. The report concluded: “The lack of equipment at the scene of the spill is shocking, and appears to reflect what some describe as a strategy of cleaning up oil once it comes ashore versus containing the spill and cleaning it up in the ocean.”

McCallister’s experience in trying to win approval for the Greek vessels, along with the frustrations others have expressed in offering specialized equipment, contradicts the official pronouncements from BP and the federal government about the approval process. For foreign vessels, that process is complicated by a 1920 maritime law known as the Jones Act.

Coast Guard Rear Adm. James Watson, who oversees the Unified Command catastrophe response in New Orleans, determined in mid-June an insufficient number of U.S. skimming vessels is available to clean up oil, essentially exempting from the federal Jones Act foreign vessels that could be used in the response, said Capt. Ron LaBrec, a spokesman at Coast Guard headquarters in Washington.

The Jones Act allows only vessels that are U.S. flagged and owned to carry goods between U.S. ports.

To further clarify, Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, promised expedited Jones Act waivers for any essential spill-response activities. “Should any waivers be needed,” Allen said at the time, “we are prepared to process them as quickly as possible to allow vital spill response activities being undertaken by foreign-flagged vessels to continue without delay.”

LaBrec said 24 foreign vessels, two of them skimming vessels, have operated around the catastrophe site, in federal waters with no need for Jones Act waivers. He also said Watson has the authority to approve operation of foreign-flagged vessels near shore, where the Jones Act comes into play because of the port restrictions.

Fred D. McCallister, Vice President, Allegiance Capital Corporation

“If the unified area commander (Watson) decides that it’s a piece of equipment he needs, either BP would contract for it or he can do that himself,” LaBrec said. “If it’s something he decides is absolutely needed, he can get it in here without BP approval.

“The equipment that has been offered — the foreign equipment that has been offered that is useful for the response — has either been accepted or is in the group of offers that is currently in the process of being accepted. That has been occurring since early in the response and will continue to occur.”

Dealing with BP

McCallister said none of his dealings have been with the Coast Guard. He submitted requests for Jones Act waivers to Unified Command, but said questions about the skimming vessels have come from BP.

BP spokesman Beaudo said McCallister was notified his offer of skimming vessels has been declined because the vessels will not pick up heavy oil near shore. Beaudo said he did not know when McCallister was informed. McCallister said he received communications from BP on Thursday that indicated his proposal was still under review. In fact, he sent supplemental material Thursday, which was accepted, to show the skimming vessels will pick up heavy oil like that bombarding Mississippi’s coastline. The 60-foot vessels, he said, can skim high-density crude up to 20 miles offshore. Equipment on board separates the oil from water.

Desperate for skimmers

All the Gulf states dealing with oil have pleaded for more skimming vessels. The Deepwater Horizon Web site indicates 550 “skimmers” were at work before bad weather suspended operations.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour’s office has ordered private shipyards to build skimming vessels because so few have been working in state waters. George Malvaney, who heads the Mississippi Coast cleanup effort for BP subcontractor U.S. Environmental Services, said offers of skimming vessels and other equipment take time to review. He believes Mississippi will have a “substantial skimming effort” by late next week.

“Just because it’s a skimmer doesn’t mean it’s effective,” Malvaney said. “There’s a lot of people out there saying, ‘We’ve got skimmers.’ Some are effective, some are not. That’s what we’re trying to wade through right now.”

More than meets the eye?

As the catastrophe reaches Day 73, McCallister, who grew up in Mississippi and has family on the Coast, believes there is just more to it.

“Looking at it from a businessman’s perspective,” he said, “if I am BP, assuming I don’t have a conscience that would steer me otherwise, the best thing I can do for my shareholders, my pensioners, and everybody else, is to try to spread the cost of this remediation out as long as I can.

“I am concerned it is seen by BP as being the most pragmatic financial approach. But they’re playing Russian roulette with the Gulf, the marine life in the Gulf and the people in the Gulf region.”

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/07/02/96959/why-so-few-skimmers-at-the-oil.html#ixzz0srsFcZdZ

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11090860

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Tests on a supertanker adapted to skim large quantities of oily water from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico are inconclusive because of high seas, ship owner TMT Shipping Offshore said on Monday.

Tests on the so-called “super skimmer” conducted just north of the blown out BP Plc well were supposed to be completed on Monday but have been extended because of the weather, said spokesman Bob Grantham.

“After an initial 48-hour testing period results remain inconclusive in light of the rough sea state we are encountering,” Grantham said.

“Therefore, working in close coordination with the U.S. Coast Guard, we will be undertaking an additional testing period to make operational and technological adjustments aimed at improving skimming effectiveness given the actual conditions we are encountering in the Gulf,” he said.

He said smaller skimming vessels were also struggling to operate in the conditions caused by the aftermath of Hurricane Alex, which passed through the Gulf last week.

The 1,100-foot (335 meter)-long ore and oil carrier named “A Whale” is seen as a potential savior of efforts to clean the oil pollution because it can collect 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) per day of contaminated water.

It operates by allowing oily surface water into the ship through a series of 12 horizontal slits on the port and starboard sides of the ship near the bow. The liquid is then decanted through a series of tanks to separate oil and water.

Though the total amount of oil and water mix in the Gulf remains unknown, the ship’s capacity would vastly increase what is currently being skimmed by smaller vessels.

The “A Whale” underwent an initial test off the coast of Portugal where it was fitted out for its new role and passed with flying colors, crew members said.

As a result, the company expected little difficulty in proving that it could work in the Gulf.

If it passes the test, the Taiwanese parent company TMT hopes to secure a contract with BP to skim oil and it is also preparing two additional ships for the task.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/05/AR2010070502937.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2010070502831

By Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 6, 2010

In the 77 days since oil from the ruptured Deepwater Horizon began to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, BP has skimmed or burned about 60 percent of the amount it promised regulators it could remove in a single day.

The disparity between what BP promised in its March 24 filing with federal regulators and the amount of oil recovered since the April 20 explosion underscores what some officials and environmental groups call a misleading numbers game that has led to widespread confusion about the extent of the spill and the progress of the recovery.

“It’s clear they overreached,” said John F. Young Jr., council chairman in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish. “I think the federal government should have at the very least picked up a phone and started asking some questions and challenged them about the accuracy of that number and tested the veracity of that claim.”

In a March report that was not questioned by federal officials, BP said it had the capacity to skim and remove 491,721 barrels of oil each day in the event of a major spill.

As of Monday, with about 2 million barrels released into the gulf, the skimming operations that were touted as key to preventing environmental disaster have averaged less than 900 barrels a day.

Skimming has captured only 67,143 barrels, and BP has relied on burning to remove 238,095 barrels. Most of the oil recovered — about 632,410 barrels — was captured directly at the site of the leaking well.

BP officials declined to comment on the validity of early skimming projections, stressing instead the company’s commitment to building relief wells intended to shut down the still-gushing well.

“The numbers are what they are,” said BP spokesman Toby Odone. “At some point, we will look back and say why the numbers ended up this way. That’s for the future. Right now, we are doing all we can to capture and collect the oil through various methods. We will make sure all the oil is ultimately dealt with.”

BP began downgrading expectations only two days after the rig explosion. Although its projections reported to the federal government were only weeks old, the company cited a greatly reduced number in a news release filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. It projected that it had “skimming capacity of more than 171,000 barrels per day, with more available if needed.”

The release presented an optimistic picture of a company scrambling to clean up the mess, mobilizing a “flotilla of vessels and resources that includes: significant mechanical recovery capacity.”

In truth, the skimming effort was hampered from the start by numerous factors, including the slow response of emergency workers, inadequate supplies and equipment, untrained cleanup crews, and inclement weather. Greatly compounding the problem was the nature of the spill, with much of the oil never surfacing.

The poor results of the skimming operations have led to a desperate search for solutions. The world’s largest skimmer, owned by the Taiwanese, is on site and undergoing Coast Guard safety tests. The 10-story-high ship, which is the length of three football fields, was touted as having the ability to remove oil at the rate of tens of thousands of barrels every day. Thus far, it has been unable to produce those results in the gulf.

About 90 percent of the mixture is water, so the true amount of oil skimmed is relatively small — roughly 67,143 barrels of oil. Had the estimated amounts in the March response plan been accurate, 38 million barrels of oil could have been removed by now.

“This has been a cat-and-mouse game since March when they put out these estimates,” said Earthjustice attorney Colin H. Adams. “We want real figures instead of inflated estimates on what they are cleaning up and deflated estimates on how much is gushing out.”

In response to criticism that the government did not challenge crucial aspects of BP’s recovery plans, the Coast Guard this week is scheduled to announce creation of an expert panel to conduct a “preparedness review” for Deepwater Horizon.

“I think this will fundamentally change the lay of the land when it comes to oil spill preparations,” said Greg Pollock, deputy commissioner of the Oil Spill Prevention and Response Program at the Texas General Land Office. “Unfortunately, it’s taken a catastrophic spill to get us to look at it.”

BP’s March response plan was filed with the federal Minerals Management Service, which has oversight over oil drilling. BP said it would reach the stated goal largely by deploying two companies that have the necessary expertise, trained staff and equipment: the nonprofit Marine Spill Response Corp. and for-profit National Response Corp.

But Marine Spill Response said it was never asked whether it could hit the optimistic marks set by BP. National Response declined to comment.

“Not at any time were we consulted with what was in the plan either by MMS or by our customer,” said Marine Spill Response spokeswoman Judith Roos.

Daily reports from the federal government and BP’s Joint Operations Center in Louisiana quickly showed that retrieval efforts were falling far short of promises. After the first week, just 100 barrels of oil had been skimmed from the gulf, while the broken well continued to pour as much as 200,000 barrels of oil into the water.

It wasn’t until mid-June that BP’s daily report noted the collection of 485,714 barrels — roughly the amount it said it could retrieve in a day. But the June figure was for an oil-water mixture, which is about 90 percent ocean water.

Meanwhile, BP also kept revising its estimate of the amount of oil leaking into the gulf. In the early days after the spill, BP and federal officials placed the daily flow rate from the ruptured rig at 1,000 barrels a day, and then raised it to 5,000 barrels a day. In late May, a group of scientists charged by the government with estimating the flow said the rate was 12,000 to 25,000 barrels a day. And in June, the official estimated rate jumped to 35,000 to 60,000 barrels a day.

Because of these changing numbers and wide ranges, the amount of uncollected oil might be as low as 1.1 million barrels and as high as 4 million barrels.

Earthjustice, which has joined with the Sierra Club and other environmental groups to sue the federal government over BP’s response plan, warns that because these estimates continue to climb, the spillage numbers could go higher.

Earthjustice also says spill damage is being obscured by misleading numbers.

On Monday, the joint operations center for the federal government and BP reported that more than 671,428 barrels of an oil-water mixture have been captured and stored.

The figures clearly have confused journalists, with many media outlets reporting the figures as solid oil recovery numbers.

In a statement, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Minerals Management Service (recently renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement) said they are reviewing how cleanup estimates are crafted and the government’s role in reviewing them.

“Without question, we must raise the bar for offshore oil and gas operations, hold them to the highest safety standards,” the statement said.